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Weakening the teams would make the Tour de France more competitive

Would trimming teams of riders make for a more competitive Tour? (Image: Team Sky)
Roar Guru
28th July, 2014
11

Watching the Tour de France on television is a great spectacle, with exciting finishes and incredible scenery. Seeing a bunched peloton or a strung-out line of riders is a magnificent sight.

But I liken it to watching Test cricket. Astute watchers can see and understand the tactics, but you don’t need to watch every kilometre. I am often sitting at the computer or reading a book with the race on in the background.

Is the race itself really all that competitive? Most of the time it seems like a procession with breakaways inevitably caught by the peloton.

The leaders don’t attack one another too often, except in the mountains and usually only on the final climb.

For most of the race the leaders seem to just watch each other and cover any moves. They rely heavily on their teams to protect them and to do most of the work. It seems like you get into yellow and then become defensive – and that is fine.

But does this make it a bit too easy for those leaders, those heads of state? Should they have to work a bit harder? And if so, how?

In asking these questions I acknowledge just how hard the Tour is and I truly admire these iron men.

The 2014 tour has been more open and competitive than previous years. In 2012 and 2013 the Sky team was so dominant that Bradley Wiggins’ and Chris Froome’s ultimate victories were never in doubt, and the 2014 tour has been more exciting to watch for exactly this reason.

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Vincenzo Nibali made a few strong statements with stage victories and moves in the mountains to stamp his authority. Still, for 90 per cent of each stage Nibali sat in the slipstream of his teammates. The Astana team was too strong and too dominant. How can we change this?

Here’s a suggestion for the UCI. Every five days, one member from each team should be removed from the race.

Each team starts with nine riders, reduced to eight after Stage 5, seven after Stage 10, and six after Stage 15. Removing another rider after Stage 20 would be pointless in a 21-stage race.

If a rider was forced to retire after a crash in Stage 3 for example, his team would not have to eliminate another rider. However if a rider were eliminated in Stage 3 for not finishing within the time limit, then his team would still have to eliminate another rider after Stage 5.

Each team directer can choose which riders to eliminate. Sprinters teams could shed their climbing domestiques after the mountain stages. General classification teams could eliminate their breakaway specialists. There would be an extra layer to the tactics for each team.

Weakening the teams in this way would make for more tactical racing and make the Tour more competitive. It is still a team event but making individual riders a little bit more responsible for their own fate would be a good thing.

With 20 teams starting the Tour, eliminating three riders from each team, or 60 riders in total, makes the peloton much smaller by the time they get to Paris, potentially detracting from the spectacle. Why not add a couple of extra teams to make up the difference?

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